EDITORIAL: Playing the sexism canard at the State Department

OPINION:

Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News Channel talk-show host, learned last week that some Democratic women can’t take criticism. He castigated State Department spokesman Jen Psaki for evading questions about the administration’s lack of strategy in the Middle East.

Mr. O’Reilly said Mrs. Psaki appeared to be “way out of her depth,” adding, “It doesn’t look like she has the gravitas for that job.” Mrs. Psaki’s deputy, Marie Harf, went on the offensive. “When the anchor of a leading cable-news show uses, quite frankly, sexist, personally offensive language that I actually don’t think they would ever use about a man against the person that shares this podium with me,” she said, “I think I have an obligation … to step up and say, ’That’s not OK.’ I don’t think [that language] would be used against a man.”

She should watch Mr. O’Reilly some time, if she can tear herself away from PBS. Mr. O’Reilly talks that way about everyone. He’s an equal-opportunity critic. When Mrs. Psaki and Mrs. Harf declined an invitation to appear on his show, Mr. O’Reilly pulled out video of his remarks about White House spokesman Josh Earnest. “He looks to me to be befuddled,” he says on the tape from the archives. “Mr. Earnest doesn’t look like he has a lot of credibility … . He just looks uncertain to me.”

It’s not the fault of Mr. Earnest or Mrs. Psaki that they look out of their depth and missing gravitas. A Barrymore would have a hard time not looking bewildered if he were put before the cameras to explain how President Obama leads from behind.

The sexism card — or more accurately, the sexism canard — is played at any slight, real or usually imagined, as part of this administration’s never-ending political campaign. Even female Republican candidates find themselves accused of waging war on themselves, as Terri Lynn Land, the Republican Senate candidate in Michigan, can attest. Unlike many of her male colleagues, she sets an example by confronting such a charge head-on.

“Congressman Gary Peters and his buddies want you to believe that I’m waging war on women,” Mrs. Land says in a TV spot, “Really? Think about that for a moment.” Then, after a pregnant pause, she shakes her head in mocking disbelief and adds, “I approved this message because, as a woman, I might know a little bit more about women than Gary Peters.”

Mrs. Land shows how to beat the Democrats at their dishonest game. That will be useful if Hillary Clinton makes a White House run in 2016 and plays the sexism canard, as she did in her 2000 Senate race against Rick Lazio.

It may be unchivalrous of Mr. O’Reilly to attack the messenger at Foggy Bottom, but it’s certainly not sexist. The deer-in-the-headlights look afflicts everyone, male or female, put in the position of defending the most incompetent administration in a generation.